Best Photos of the Year
Posted: December 31

This year has been a challenging year for our country in more ways than one.

With the global pandemic in full force, I was not able to spend my summer in Idaho. I was not able to get out much to take photos here in St. Louis either... no photos taken until August 30th!

In late October, my new Canon R5 mirror less camera arrived and thus I was motivated to get out and do at least a little bit of photography.

Lone Elk Park
Posted: December 10

 Rick Schuessler and I visited Lone Elk Park, the World Bird Sanctuary and Bader Park. I paired my Canon 500 mm with my Canon R5 to capture some Elk photos. Took a few landscape photos there as well with my Canon 24-70 mm. World Bird Sanctuary - nice selection of birds but it was difficult to get a clear shot of the birds due to the wire of the displays. Really like the photo of the Great Blue Heron.

The last photo (Canon 70-200 mm) was taken at Bader Park which is designed to accommodate model plane hobbyists. Pretty amazing to watch the radio controlled guys do their stuff!

- About Lone Elk Park -

Hawn State Park
Posted: November 22

Today was a good "cloudy" day so I decided I would take a long drive (1-1/2 hours) to Hawn State Park. I have backpacked many times in this park and as I have recently had a buzz for woodland photography, I thought Hawn would offer some nice photo ops.

- About Hawn State Park -

Lafayette Square Doors
Posted: November 15

Took my Canon 135 f/2 lens out for the day with the new R5.

 I went to the Lafayette Square part of St. Louis. This area is one of a number of areas in St. Louis where folks have purchased vintage homes and lovingly restored them. One characteristic of these homes that stands out for me is the ornate entry doors of these homes.

- View photos -

Forest Park
Posted: November 08

Went for another Fall outing in Forest Park today. I would say that the colors are right about peak or a little bit past.

- View photos -

Highway 79
Posted: November 02

After a morning dental visit in St. Charles, I spent the rest of the day driving Highway 79 looking for excuses to depress the shutter button on my new Canon R5 camera.

- About Highway 79 -

Augusta MO - Plus more
Posted: October 31

Today the weather was very nice so I spent the whole day on photography. I started out around Augusta MO. I had visited the above barn/out building in early October and wanted to return when the fall colors were closer to peak. I then drove to Meramec State Park where I had never been before. Captured a few decent photos there.

Tonight was the "blue moon". I was unable to get to a good location where I could catch the moon as it was first rising and therefore the "blue" moon. The next best thing was my backyard where I had shot the moon several nights ago. We had some cloudiness but just like with landscape photos, they provided some interest to the resultant capture. Some tree branches chimed in and I came up with a pretty decent Halloween photo.

- View photos -

Forest Park
Posted: October 28

After being on order for six weeks, my new Canon R5 camera arrived. I took it out for my second Forest Park outing today. All of these shots were taken with tripod support (and a two-second shutter delay). It is not obvious with these size photos but the 45 MP does translate into more detail when viewing the full size photo close-up.

I also played around a bit with the focus stacking feature of the R5. The three focus stacked images I took start with the fungal growth on the tree trunk. I combined these images in Photoshop to get the final images that are displayed here. This is a pretty easy process both in camera and in Photoshop. I foresee using this technique for those special shots in the future.

- View photos -

Forest Park
Posted: August 30

The weather was a bit cooler this morning so I decided to depress the shutter button on my camera for the first time this year.

- View photos -

Strange Result
Posted: August 23

A number of years ago, I was on a photo outing to our Missouri Botanical Garden here in St. Louis Missouri. During that outing, I took two photos of the tree pictured above. These photos were taken 17 seconds apart . My shooting position was in the shade of the trees and the tree was backlit.

- About Missouri Botanical Garden -

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Matt K Post Processing my Old Patriarch Tree Photo
Posted: May 17

During the down time necessitated by the Corona Virus pandemic, I watched tons of videos and webcasts on a variety of topics. Quite a few of the webcasts I watched were hosted by Matt Kloskowski (www.MattK.Com) an educator in the field of photography software. Matt took this as an opportunity to engage folks on a variety of topics. These webcasts were widely followed and quite informative.

- Read More -